Overview
The Cognition research cluster uses behavioral and neurophysiological techniques to investigate how cognitive processing strategies influence the way humans interact with variation in language. We study how people integrate variation they hear into their own speech and how linguistic features with high social value are processed mentally.
Active Workstreams
- Testing how speech-sound categories update under matched split and merger patterns using behavioral identification, discrimination, and EEG measures.
- Investigating when perceptual retuning transfers into a talker's own speech as phonetic drift.
- Testing whether earlier exposure continues to shape perception and production after groups receive identical current input.
- Processing sociolinguistic variation.
- Acoustic-change detection: an EEG study of how the brain registers changes in speech.
Methods
- Behavioral experiments measuring speech-sound identification, discrimination, perceptual retuning, and production change.
- EEG/ERP recording of early acoustic change detection, later category evaluation, and oscillatory dynamics.
- Acoustic analysis of participant speech before and after exposure.
- Statistical modeling of category-boundary change, production transfer, and history-dependent adaptation.
Recent and Current Outputs
- 2026: Caselli, J., Toscano, J.C., and Berry, G.M. "Time-resolved associations among theta phase synchrony, power, and ERP amplitude in speech-sound change detection." PsyArXiv.
- 2024: "Reactive cognitive control, perceptual flexibility, and phonetic drift" (Psychonomic Society, New York).
- 2024: "Acoustic change detection as a predictor of phonological adaptation" (Variation and Language Processing 6, Vigo).
Funding and Grants
- 2023: Caselli, J. (VURF). "Does Perception Match Performance? Neurophysiological Correlates of Cognitive Control."
- 2022-2024: Berry, G.M., and Toscano, J.C. (Research Catalyst Grant, Villanova Institute for Research and Scholarship). "Experiential and Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Language Adaptation."
Project Snapshot
- Cluster: Cognition
- Current priority: speech-category updating under structured variation
- Primary outcomes: category-boundary change, discrimination, phonetic drift, history dependence, and EEG responses
- Population: adult listeners and talkers
- Methods: behavioral experiments, acoustic analysis, and EEG/ERP
Last Updated
September 2026